Grace
"Ugh!"
But his bold start lasted all of a few minutes. Before the sparring match had even properly begun, Kallen was rolling in the mud, a complete wreck.
"…"
As he stared at the wooden sword lying in the dirt, a familiar sense of humiliation and defeat flickered through Kallen's eyes.
He simply hadn't expected to lose this badly. He couldn't bring himself to face Lenart, and even the silence hanging over the training ground felt like it was speaking for her disappointment.
He hadn't proven anything — he'd only exposed how shallow he really was.
"…You're incredible."
But what reached Kallen's ears as he squeezed his eyes shut was Lenart's voice, thick with bewilderment.
"R-really incredible… no, what even…? Seriously…?"
Lenart stood there, mouth hanging open, stammering. She replayed the exchange they'd just had in her mind.
She'd only meant to give the boy a light lesson, but the moment the match began, Kallen's blade had come darting in at her vitals with such speed that she'd been overwhelmed for an instant. It was a restrained, razor-sharp movement — utterly impossible to reconcile with a boy his age.
Caught off guard, she had swung a telling blow on pure reflex and only then recoiled in shock — yet Kallen had flowed around even that, losing nothing more than his grip on his sword.
"Hoo…"
Setting aside the likes of beastfolk and demons, among the famed knights of the continent she could count on one hand the people who had turned aside one of her strikes. And now something had happened that her common sense simply could not explain.
It would be fair to say that the only thing that had decided their bout was the difference in real combat experience. Lenart reached her conclusion without difficulty: had Kallen not been such a green, unripe boy, the one sprawled in the dirt right now might well have been her.
"Honestly, you exceeded my expectations… no, far, far beyond them. Good heavens, at that age… how is that even possible…?"
"…You don't have to pile it on like that."
Despite her admiration, Kallen only shook his head wearily.
"I know exactly what happened. I lost, and pathetically. I guess it really is best if I just go along as support, after all— ugh!"
Suddenly, sparks burst before Kallen's eyes. At the familiar pain he'd felt before, he clutched his forehead with teary eyes and stared straight ahead.
"Just how old do you think you are?"
Lenart had crept up on him at some point, fist raised, glaring daggers down at him.
"Like I'd lose to some snot-nosed brat? Hm?"
"That's not what I—"
"…"
At the sight of Kallen hanging his head in defeat, the scolding Lenart had been gearing up to deliver suddenly left her feeling conflicted.
She didn't need to look to guess the kind of life he'd lived. Swordsmanship like his, at his age, was not something talent alone could produce. It was the hard-won fruit of grinding, bone-shattering effort, repeated over and over again.
And yet Kallen couldn't see his own skill objectively at all. That seemed far more likely to stem from something psychological than from any lack of natural sense.
Worse — a boy like that had been wandering the back alleys, half a step from starving to death.
"…"
Whatever his circumstances were, Lenart knew at once they had to be very big ones indeed. For a moment, an intense curiosity rose up in her, a powerful urge to dig into his past — but she quickly shook her head and pushed the temptation away.
Rather than indulge her own petty desires, Lenart intended to help the poor boy in front of her.
"Hey — want me to tell you something?"
Sitting down beside Kallen, Lenart reached out and pulled him close, tucking him snugly against her side. Then she caught his wide, startled eyes, flashed a wry smile, and spoke.
"The truth is, I'm kind of a big deal. I mean, one of the people I've beaten was Sibilik, a Supreme Master of the Church of Aten. You knew that, right?"
The title of Supreme Master was an honor bestowed only upon the seven strongest holy knights on the entire continent. As if to prove it, she drew from her breast an intricately worked cross pendant and handed it to Kallen.
"Won it off him in a duel and took it as my trophy, heh heh."
Sure enough, the name Sibilik could be faintly seen engraved into the back. As Kallen turned the pendant over in wonder, she ruffled his hair and went on.
"I use it as my badge of honor these days. If you ever run into Sibilik, casually ask him about it sometime. His face'll go scarlet and he'll pitch a fit."
"…That really is incredible."
"And you — you made someone that incredible take you seriously."
At her words, Kallen flinched slightly. Lenart tightened her hold and raised her voice.
"You're allowed to be proud of that, you know? Someone who accomplished what you have at your age? You could search the entire history of the Empire and not find ten of them. I'd stake my neck on it."
"…"
"So what's got you in such a rush, huh? Aren't you being a little too greedy?"
"It's not like that… ugh."
"Hnngh."
Suddenly Lenart seized both of Kallen's cheeks in her hands and hauled them up. She stretched his mouth long from side to side so he couldn't answer back, then spoke in a stern voice.
"Take it slow. Nobody here is going to say a word to you about it. If you just keep doing what you're doing, you'll get everything you want and then some."
"But… ahhh."
"And no talking back. When your elder is talking, do you really want to keep arguing?"
Lenart's hands stretched his muttering face even longer, forcing his gaze level with hers.
"If you can't trust yourself, then trust me. You can at least manage that much, can't you?"
"…"
Beyond the strands of azure hair hanging down between them, her orange eyes brimmed over with nothing but certainty and affection. Kallen could see it, plain and clear, from mere inches away.
At last, he nodded, his voice a little steadier than before.
"…Okay."
"Captain… you told Lenart to take me in, didn't you?"
Ellie, sitting beneath a chestnut tree with a book in her hands, flinched. A moment of flustered panic crossed her face before she composed her expression and answered Kallen with forced nonchalance.
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"Because… I needed a lackey."
"A… what?"
"Is there anything you actually know? Are you an idiot? You've got such a decent face, too."
"…"
The unprovoked scolding left Kallen utterly dumbfounded.
For once, he was certain Lenart had gotten it wrong. It was obvious, really — she'd only asked to take him into the mercenary corps because she wanted someone to torment.
"A fine lady needs someone waiting on her hand and foot. They brought you in and even gave you a name for that exact purpose, so that's how it is. And don't go smiling uselessly at the other sisters, either."
"So what exactly… fine, whatever."
Kallen had meant to argue back, but he soon gave up entirely and slumped down against the tree trunk.
He'd fallen from the Empire's finest knight to the lowest gutter beggar, and now he was the personal servant of a commoner girl with a foul mouth. At this point, there was nothing left to be surprised about.
"…"
Ellie glared at him as if he somehow irritated her for no reason, then whipped her head away. She soon opened her book and, as always, buried herself in reading.
Today, instead of her usual battered books of etiquette and general learning, Ellie was reading a thick volume bound in leather.
After flipping through the pages for a while, she stretched one hand out in front of her and murmured something under her breath. Then, with a soft whoosh, a small flame bloomed up out of thin air.
Even the perennially indifferent Kallen's eyes went wide with surprise. He asked her,
"You're a mage?"
"Yeah."
Ellie answered halfheartedly and kept chanting. Six more flames sprang into being in quick succession, circling through the air in swirling patterns at her every gesture.
Mages, who borrowed and wielded the power of the Illusion Realm, were welcome guests in any territory, alongside knights. The imperial court maintained its own college of court mages, and on the far side of the continent stood the Magic Tower, devoted entirely to arcane research. At the Imperial Academy — where Kallen was originally supposed to have gone — magic was one of the mandatory subjects.
And Ellie, even at a glance, boasted magic of considerable refinement.
"I only found out after I joined the corps, too. If my parents ever saw this, they'd beat the ground and weep with regret."
Ellie wore a grin from ear to ear, chuckling to herself.
"I had no idea I had this kind of talent."
Within the mercenary corps, Ellie was a rare and precious asset, responsible for supporting the unit from the rear.
And so Kallen convinced himself that this, surely, was why Lenart tolerated her sharp-tongued attitude.
"I'm going to enroll at Elysion Academy."
Ellie said, snapping her book shut with a thump.
Kallen had heard of Elysion as well. A mystical fortress hidden in the mists of the Talaran Mountains in the continent's heart — a cradle of learning with a longer history than any nation on the continent, the Empire included.
In the centuries since the dawn of the age of humanity, a number of academies much like it had sprung up, but Elysion's prestige still towered hopelessly above them all.
"…Why Elysion, though?"
"The Imperial Academy is only for highborn types. If I went to Saint Paul, I'd be stuck as a paladin or a priest no matter what, and the Magic Tower is crawling with gloomy recluses who know nothing but magic — no thanks."
This was, incidentally, why the nobles of the Imperial Capital — the Imperial Academy alumni in particular — quietly looked upon Elysion with such disdain. It was the only academy on the entire continent that admitted students without regard to rank or nationality, selecting them purely on talent, all in the name of the advancement of mankind.
Kallen himself had once harbored that same arrogance, but by now it was all a hollow past. He merely thought that someone with Ellie's ability would have no trouble gaining entrance there.
"Besides, my rise starts there. I'll build up my connections in advance, and hunt around for some prey while I'm at it."
Though, it seemed, Ellie was rather more interested in the latter than in any grand cause like the advancement of mankind.
"I'll do about one more year with the mercenary corps, then go take the entrance exam."
"Why not right away…? At your age, you could—"
"So you're telling me to abandon the Captain and all the sisters and run off so I can live comfortably on my own?"
Ellie glared up at him balefully, as if to say, how is that even a question? It was Kallen, oddly enough, who felt sheepish at her unexpectedly sensible answer.
"I have to repay the debt of them saving me, don't I? And I need to save up money anyway. Plus, there's also…"
As she rattled off her reasons, Ellie trailed off, glancing at Kallen again and again, hesitant.
Under that silent, steady stare, Kallen couldn't help but wear a bewildered expression.
"What?"
"…Shut up, idiot."
Ellie simply turned her head away with a huff, prickly as ever.